I enjoyed the points about our media and how we process information and our lack of an inability to process complex information.

When it comes to police shootings it is unfathomable to me that over the years the US has not studied police shootings to the fullest amount possible.  Until recently, morons in Congress prohibited the US Govt from collecting certain firearm statistics, and to me, it is inexcusable that we have not always had a collection of data of ALL police shootings.  If I'm not mistaken, the Fed Govt has just passed laws to collect this data - but I could be wrong.

To me, the root problem with the discussion of all things race is based on the inability to do so.  Sounds simple, right? And this is especially true when it comes to criminal justice issues. 

Perspectives on crime in America are often too quickly discounted with simplistic labels often with the purpose to win an argument or get one's way. 

I learned early on in my college studies, statistics wise, crime is mostly interrelated by race, just as Peter T pointed out, but to publically remark about such things (as in the "Black on Black" killings), too often racial accusations are pointed to, rather than a sincere discussion about the statistics. 

Years ago we had a local Black politician that spoke critically of race and crime and wow, though he based his comments on facts, he was wildly attacked and that shut him up for good. So that just proves how difficult this subject is.

And as for statistics, about a decade ago our state mandated when officers stopped vehicles that a form be completed to ensure racial profiling was not being done.  As for a data collection device, the form was and still is horrible.  It is clear that the people that developed it had no intention of collecting accurate data.  The questions required to be filled out were inadequate to determine if racial profiling was occurring and I doubt statisticians were even properly weighing the data to developed accurate information. 

For example, the simple question of "Did you know the race of the driver prior to stopping the vehicle?"

Nor were there questions regarding the demeanor of the driver (any honest cop will tell you often times the end results of police encounters are often determined by the person encountered - hence the phrase, "talked yourself into a ticket."). 

My overall point is we can only interpret the data from collected data in the manner in which it is collected.

Sadly, Peter T makes a good point and that is how too quickly we all have thoughts that could be deemed racist or offensive on their surface, but at times, there is much more depth to those thoughts that renders them not so.  But to get around these first impressions takes really good dialog that includes sincere back and forth with no immediate judgments being made.  This is one of the reasons I avoided controversial topics like race and crime with most people unless the person was someone I was close to and especially those associates of color.